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Comment Re:Suing a game manufacturer? (Score 2) 273

I can see one very good reason. The store is like Steam. Say they suffer a massive security breach like PSN did. I think that's grounds to sue.

There's also the speculation of other parts of their EULA, regarding you losing your games if you don't log in for a set amount of time. (Two years I think it is.)

Not to mention if they sell you a game knowing it's defective or broken in some fashion. (Like the recent From Dust debacle with Ubisoft.)

The fact is it should NOT be legal to have this in the EULA IMO. I would guarantee it wouldn't stand up in court. The only problem with that is you'd need a lot of money to do it.

I also love the way the EFF never say a bloody word about stuff like this. Finding the EFF increasingly pointless.

Comment Re:Just look two stories down (Score 2) 422

BAH! XP is still fine. By that definition people shouldn't use Unix.

Vista and 7 have no need to exist unless you're an MS shareholder. They bring nothing to table of any use.

I've had this argument for years with people as I still use XP. A couple of games have been DX10 only, which is asinine when in at least one case they were a port of an Xbox title and the console is essentially a DX9 box. But everything is still supported. My system is still current and can run stuff like Mass Effect 2 etc...

I'm still waiting for a compelling argument from someone to upgrade, but it seems all 7 does is up the minimum system requirements of everything. My kids have Windows 7 on their laptops and I despise it.

I can't be bothered to get into all the reasons why I hate it, but until such time as I'm forced to upgrade, I won't, as everything, including GAMES most importantly, still support XP, and to be quite frank I can live without the "NOW WITH ADDED SHINY" DX10 nonsense. It doesn't make the games any better,

I'm waiting for the day nVividia bring out card that improves gameplay. THAT would be a reason to upgrade.

The Internet

Ask Slashdot: Living Without Internet At-Home Access? 462

An anonymous reader writes "I've decided that the internet is no longer a positive influence on my life, and am interested in canceling my service. In the interest of not forgoing all digital conveniences, I plan to set up a small intranet, hosting a few resources that I think I'd like to have access to on a regular basis (e.g. a text dump of Wikipedia). I'll also still have access to the internet at my office, and have easy access to public Wi-Fi at libraries and coffee shops. My questions are thus: Does anybody have any experience living without the internet? What major nuisances did you encounter? What resources should I put on my intranet? Is there anything I'm overlooking?"

Comment Re:But the Best Buy guy said it does (Score 1) 664

Cheapest I can find an HDMI cable around where I live is $50. That's for a 3 foot cable.

Went online, and a few days later received two 6' HDMI cables in the mail. Total cost, including shipping? $4.50. They of course work just fine.

I thought this was a Canada only thing as our options for electrical stuff here are limited (due to 99% of places being owned by the same couple of companies). Glad to see it isn't, though it saddens me to see such scamming going on.

Comment Re:Airplay (Score 1) 346

I bought an iPod Touch 4G last year. Wanted the camera. I had a 1g Touch which became obsolete before 4.x even shipped. Yes it was annoying, but I actually found it kinda nice, no longer giving a crap.

Though it's nice that after 3 years of owning an iPod Touch I can FINALLY share my entire iTunes library when I'm at home. It's very slickly done too. (Even if not entirely obvious how to enable it.)

Comment Re:Good! (Score 2) 1049

I have a CFL in my outdoor lamp on my front step. And in my car port a regular incandescent. Both are wired to the same switch. (Don't blame me, I didn't build the place.)

I flip the switch on garbage night. I put on coat and gloves (I live in Northern Canada), I grab two bags, lug them the 100 or so yards to the designated area. Come back. Take the next bags, 100 yard walk again... If there's a third trip (no pickup for almost 3 weeks during the winter at some spots) the CFL is USUALLY on properly by then. But often times not. I'm quite often done and back inside before it's at full whack.

They're useless at their job, dangerous and expensive.

And people who leave their porch lights on all night unless it's for very good (and not imaginary) security reasons are idiots.

AI

Talking To Computers? 395

merlock18 writes "Is it un-natural to talk to a computer? After discussing the outcome of the Jeopardy game with some colleagues, they seem to think it is mildly 'scary' to talk to a computer and have it competently talk back. Is this what everyone thinks? I was thinking to myself how much I would like to be able to even tell my computer to open programs by telling it vocally. A simple idea that I am fairly surprised is not common. Am I a minority in this one? Do people just not like the idea of talking (without cursing) to a computer, let alone have it act or reply? Would anyone else be interested in building their own mini-Watson, or is this just scary?"
AI

Sysbrain Lets Satellites Think For Themselves 128

cylonlover writes "Engineers from the University of Southampton have developed what they say is the world's first control system for programming satellites to think for themselves. It's a cognitive software agent called sysbrain, and it allows satellites to read English-language technical documents, which in turn instruct the satellites on how to do things such as autonomously identifying and avoiding obstacles."

Comment Re:How far is too far? (Score 5, Interesting) 208

The problem is that the Chinese government isn't doing it - they are simply giving others license to do it, with assurances of government protection and payment.

Sound familiar? It is - it's called privateering. It used to be done with ships on the sea; now it's done with computers on the internet. While China may not be at war with us, their use of privateers is proof that they do NOT mean us well.

So how do we combat it? Article I, Section 8, paragraph 11 of the U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water." Imagine if the US Congress granted Google the authority to go after China - can you imagine how much havoc that would wreak if Google employees focused 20% of their time on fucking with China?

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